


Duo

by EmberForge



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, episode 25 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 03:31:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15185801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberForge/pseuds/EmberForge
Summary: Everybody blames themselves. Some are just more vocal about it than others.





	Duo

Fjord should be here. Fjord would know what to do. Fjord would come up with a plan, inspire everyone to carry on and move forward and make everything okay again. Fjord was a leader.

Caleb wasn’t.

But Caleb was charismatic, when he had to be. He could spin empty words to be convincing enough for people to listen. And right now, he had to. Someone needed to keep them all on track, to keep them from falling apart. Apparently that person was going to be one of the most broken out of all of them.

When they had woken up that morning to find three of their companions gone, it took very little time to realize that it wasn’t some mundane occurrence. There had barely been time to think after they realised that their friends had been taken. They busied themselves with looking for any sort of trace as to what had happened to their friends, but it was difficult. The dry weather hadn't been of much help, and they only managed to find small signs of a scuffle until the trail almost completely disappeared. Caleb suspected that whoever was the cause of this had used something to cover their tracks, and if it weren't for the faint magical aura he had sensed, it's likely that no one would be aware that anyone had been there at all.

As tempted as they all were to work through the night, Caleb knew that they needed rest to properly prepare for their next move, and had managed to convince the others to return to camp again once the sun started to set. Caleb put himself in charge of their evening meal. (He tried hard not to think about how much food they had, all the good quality food that Molly had only just bought for _all of them_ , some of which was now probably going to spoil before it could be eaten.) It was when he went to call them to eat that he was able to see how this brief pause to process things was affecting them.

Molly had remained silent. He sat near the campfire the entire time, staring off into the distance. His gaze was disturbingly empty. Caleb sat next to him whenever he wasn't tending to the food. Unspeaking, just there, present. He was only too familiar with the look Molly wore, and did what he knew he could. He was grateful that when he pressed a bowl of stew into Molly's hands, the tiefling took it, and even made brief eye contact before starting to eat.

Beau was angry. A steady whacking noise had filled the air the whole time Caleb had been cooking, and when he followed it he found her in front of a nearby tree, hitting it over and over with her bostaff until her hands were raw and she was out of breath and aching and sweaty locks of flyaway hair were plastered to her forehead. He called out her name and she spun around to face him, staff raised high and eyes wild until she recognised who he was and her arms dropped to her sides, exhausted. Caleb didn't flinch. He just dug into his pockets until he found a roll of mostly clean bandages, which he passed to her. "The food is done."

She looked down at the bandages, then slowly wrapped them around her blistered hands. "Thanks."

As he watched her walk towards the campfire, Caleb refocused his attention on finding Nott. He actually hadn't seen or heard much of her since they had gotten back to camp. It took him a few minutes (too long, far too long after everything that had happened) to find her walking back and forth, scanning the ground religiously where they had determined their friends' last known location to be. 

"Nott?" Caleb called out. When she didn't look up from what she was doing, he tried again, coming closer. "Nott?"

Still, no acknowledgement. This time he walked right up to her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "Nott-"

As soon as he made contact, she immediately spun around and snarled at him, her jagged teeth gleaming in the fading sunlight. Caleb immediately took a step back, hands raised. Not in alarm. He could never be alarmed of her. He only felt concern.

In the next moment, clarity came back into her eyes, and when she looked at him her face crumpled. She took a few steps back from _him_ , her hands trembling. "I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Caleb, I..."

"It's alright," Caleb told her, making sure to keep his voice soothing. "Dinner is ready."

"I can't. I... I have to keep looking."

"Nott, we were out here for hours. We scoured the area in every way we have at our disposal. And besides that, the sun is very close to setting. I don't think there's anything left to find tonight."

Nott's trembling just increased. "But, I just, there has to be, I can't... I can't..."

Caleb slowly crouched down put a hand on Nott's shoulder. He felt her breath hitch, but when she leaned into his touch he took that as a sign and pulled her into an embrace. Like a dam breaking, she started to let out large sobs, her entire body shaking with the force of it as tears started to soak into the front of Caleb's jacket.

"I just... I can't.... I can't do this without her! We're a detective duo! And now she's gone, and I can't find anything to help them, and... I can't solve this case on my own. I'm so useless."

Caleb rubbed small circles into Nott's back. "You're not alone. You have us, and we're doing all we can. This was a professional job. There's no way we could track them if they didn't want to be tracked. It's not your fault, liebling."

"I had a feeling that I should stay up last night. I had such a strong feeling, but I fell asleep instead. What if something happens to them?"

"Nothing is going to happen to them. We won't let anything happen to them, and more importantly, _they_ won't let anything happen to them. They're all very strong, capable people. I'm sure they'll be able to hold their own until we see them again." Caleb looked of into the distance, his eyes following the nearby road until it disappeared behind a corpse of trees. "They would have definitely put up a fight. And there's no way that whoever took them didn't have a cart to make things easier. Plus, they'd definitely need to stop for supplies at some point. We'll follow the road to the next town tomorrow and see if anyone's seen anything suspicious there. We'll _find them,_ Nott."

Not unburied her face from his chest and looked up at him, her yellow eyes glowing orange in the twilight. "I hope you're right."

Caleb just gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. _I hope so too,_ he didn't say.

**Author's Note:**

> My first thought when they episode ended was "NOOOO HOW WILL NOTT SOLVE THIS CASE WITHOUT HER DETECTIVE BUDDY TO HELP HER" so I decided to turn my angst into a fic. 
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed it, and maybe check out some of my other Critical Role fics if you did! Have any suggestions you want to see me write? Let me know in the comments!


End file.
